Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office distribute a fake anti-flotilla video? This is exactly what some American bloggers have been claiming, after probing a video that was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday.

The video, nearly three minutes long, featured a young man who called himself Marc and claimed to be a gay and human rights activist. The man recounted a story in which he asked the organizers of the upcoming Gaza flotilla to join their mission, and claimed that his request was allegedly denied on the grounds that participation of the gay and lesbian group with which he was affiliated would not serve the flotilla’s “interests.”

“Marc” explained in the video that he understood why his request was denied only after he researched the people organizing the aid flotilla and found that they had strong ties to Hamas, “whose foreign minister has called homosexuals a minority of perverts, mentally and morally sick,” he said in the video.

“Didn’t they hear that Hamas shuts down the offices of human rights NGO’s? They are slowly taking away the rights and freedoms of women… these are the people the flotilla groups are hugging,” he added.

Following the YouTube video’s release, U.S. blogger Max Blumenthal found that the recording, which was distributed by Israeli Hasbara activist Neil Lazarus on his Facebook page, was a hoax, and that the man who appears in it was actually an Israeli entrepreneur and public relations expert named Omer Gershon.

The video was also tweeted later by Guy Seeman, who was apparently working as an intern in the prime minister’s office, Ali Abunimah posted on the blog Electronic Intifada.

The premier’s office refused to comment about Seeman’s employment.

Seeman himself told Ali Abunimah that he did not know that the video was a hoax, and that he did not post the link to the video on behalf of the government, but on his own private Twitter account, and added that he decided on his own to distribute the link after he received it via email.

Haaretz sent the prime minister’s office a series of questions inquiring whether the office was involved in the production of the video in any way. The premier’s office in response did not deny that that the government was involved in the video’s production, and admitted that government bodies had distributed the link.

“Various bodies dealing with international media campaigns continuously monitor and distribute internet content when they recognize content that can serve Israel’s campaigns,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Omer Gershon was not available for comment on his Facebook account or on the phone.

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The two sides, the flotilla people and the Israeli government, are
playing a PR game. In principle, this is OK, but not for a Western
government like Israel's. A lying government (in the absence of war)
loses its credibility in the eyes of its own voters. Here we have
another factor, the amateurishness of this stunt. If Omer Gershon is a
PR man in Israel, he must be known to many people, so the secret would
have come out rather quickly. Couldn't that incompetent have used some
anonymous face like, say, one of the Haaretz moderators?

Only professionals use close-ups and all these cuts; a private person
just puts his camera somewhere, speaks into the build-in mic, and
uploads it on youtube. The video is produced by s.o. working for movie
or TV

I find the content very well done,however to have post it from youtube
from an Israeli IP address seem to be very unprofessional for people
who know the technical part of it ...their acts endanger the all
campaign of the Israeli media even more

The video is a FAKE bit of propaganda made by your govt to justify its
hate toward others and encourage more hatred of people trying to force
your country to commit to peace. There is no room to discuss what is in
the videa, its a propaganda piece and for that very reason not worthy of
discussion, only derision.

Once more Israeli efforts at Hasbarah rebound! The net effect of this
will be to reinforce Israel's image as lying propagandists. Never mind
how foul Hamas is, if you broadcast lies they come back to haunt you.

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